Annihilation: Book One of the Area X: Southern Reach Trilogy (2014) by Jeff VanderMeer: Interesting, cosmically horrifying ideas are relentlessly stripped of all horror and weirdness by the attenuated, flat nature of both characterization and description in this first, shortest novel of Jeff VanderMeer's double-named Area X/Southern Reach trilogy.
VanderMeer seems to be striving for the sort of vague horror of his Weird Fiction touchstone M. John Harrison, specifically in the vein of Harrison stories that include "The New Rays" and "Egnaro." Which is to say, the two Harrison stories included by VanderMeer in his massive and massively flawed anthology The Weird. Harrison's stories take place in places that seem contemporary, but vaguely so, with both time and place being disturbingly off-kilter.
So some time in the near future in the Southern United States, a research team of five women ventures into an area called Area X. They're the 13th such team. Or are they? Is this the near future or is this going on 'now'? Do the characters have names or are they only referred to by their occupations?
Our Biologist narrator lost her husband to Area X. Just getting into Area X somehow wipes one's memory of getting into Area X. The whole place is a sort of mutated dimensional space caused by Something from Outside crashing into a lighthouse some time in the past. Or that's what it appears to be. To the lighthouse, then!
Ciphers squabble with other ciphers. No one figures much out. There's a weird thing in an underground complex. There are signs of bloody battle at the lighthouse. The narrator's husband nicknamed her Ghost Bird, a nickname that doesn't seem to apply much to our characterless main character.
VanderMeer throws around italicized words and phrases like August Derleth editing H.P. Lovecraft stories. Is that intentional? Because the set-up of Area X is pretty much the set-up of Lovecraft's 1928 classic "The Colour Out of Space," in which the titular something mutates and destroys a New England landscape and everything in it.
It takes a special sort of genius to make events and things as weird as are posited in this novel so boring, so enervating to this reader that there is no way I'm reading the second and third books. Your results may vary. It all feels like horror for people too refined for horror. Not recommended.
It Comes At Night (2017): written and directed by Trey Edward Shults; starring Joel Edgerton (Paul), Christopher Abbott (Will), Carmen Ejogo (Sarah), Riley Keough (Kim), Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Travis), and Griffin Robert Faulkner (Andrew):
Tense, claustrophobic thriller is set during some sort of zombie-plague apocalypse but uses that apocalypse to explore the horrors of human beings under pressure. Father, mother, and teen-aged son hide in a house in the woods. A stranger arrives. Charity fights with fear.
Anyone expecting pitched battles with the walking dead will be disappointed in It Comes At Night. But if you're in the mood for a downbeat tale of character and failure, the movie is a solid effort. It's a use of the zombie to comment on human frailties that the Grandfather of Zombie Movies, George 'Night of the Living Dead' Romero, would have thoroughly enjoyed and endorsed. Recommended.
House of Leaves (2000) by Mark Z. Danielewski: Danielewski's ambitious first novel spawned a sort of cult following that is itself metafictional, given that the text within the text spawns a sort of cult following.
And that text is a lengthy examination of a movie that doesn't seem to actually exist within the world of the text, supplemented by lengthy, autobiographical footnotes from the man who found and assembled the examination of the movie after discovering it in the apartment of a recently deceased, blind writer.
Who himself also supplied lengthy footnotes to supplement the text he had spent decades writing. A text about a documentary about the House of Leaves. A documentary that doesn't seem to have ever existed. Got all that?
House of Leaves is postmodern and experimental and avant-garde and All That Jazz. It's a horror novel about a house that grows room upon room within itself, within which lurks, perhaps, a monster. Or perhaps the monster is simply the house itself. It does at times appear to be intelligent. It's a love story about a man and his lost, mentally ill mother. It's a satire of academic writing. It's a satire of epics, epic catalogues, epic odysseys. It's an epic itself.
It even turns into a concrete poem for a few dozen pages.
And oh, those footnotes!
The movie at the heart of the narrative is a documentary about attempts to explore and understand those hidden, ever-shifting rooms. The family who owns the house consists of a revered photojournalist, a former model, and two children. One day, when they return from a holiday, their house has somehow acquired a new hallway. And things get weirder from there.
If there's a flaw here, it's the tendency of the text to draw every woman other than the mentally ill mother and, for the most part, the former model as sexy, sexy sex objects. But all those sexy 'librarians' and strippers are part of the frame narrative, the footnote narrative, written by an increasingly unstable 24-year-old man. Are any of these women real? As the sex scenes involving these women all read like Penthouse Forum wish fulfillment, I'd say a conditional 'No.' Or at least I hope not.
However, House of Leaves is otherwise a fine piece of work. A horror story, a love story, a description of a documentary, a family drama, a mystery, an epic. And a convincing portrait of mental illness, if your interpretation goes that way. If your interpretation goes a long way, that way, the whole text is a delivery from a fictional writer who's suffered a monumental break with reality. Or it really is a cosmic horror piece, and so on, and so forth. It can support a whole bag of overlapping interpretations. It has many mansions.
Set aside time to read it. It's a marvelous piece of work. Highly recommended.
By the Light of My Skull (2018) by Ramsey Campbell, containing the following stories:
- The Words Between • (2016) : An homage to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari written for a theme anthology is both a chilling appreciation of that seminal horror film and a grim portrayal of a disintegrating mind.
- The Wrong Game • (2016) : A fictional Ramsey Campbell is visited by haunting memories of a 1970's science-fiction and fantasy convention.
- The Impression • (2014) : Perhaps the most overt nod to M.R. James sees an innocent bit of grave-marker rubbing unleash something on a boy and his grandmother.
- The Watched • (2014) : Sensitive, harrowing portrayal of a boy, an obsessed cop, and a stressed grandmother.
- Reading the Signs • (2013) : Don't get lost. Don't pick up hitchhikers.
- Know Your Code • (2016) : A portrait of a couple in their 'dotage' also involves some of Campbell's love of wordplay and puzzles.
- Find My Name • (2013) : A satisfying nod to a classic folk tale pits a grandmother against a familiar foe for the life of her grandchild. Word play abounds.
- On the Tour • (2014) : A forgotten Liverpool musician becomes increasingly obsessed with the Beatles bus tour.
- At Lorn Hall • (2012) : A tour of an English mansion has no need for a tour guide when those headphones are available! A modern spin on an M.R. James set-up.
- Fetched • (2016) (aka "Nightmare" 2015): You can't go home again. Or maybe shouldn't. Another story dealing with aging and loss.
- The Moons • (2011) : Children in the woods meet a helpful forest ranger. Though he does look peculiar. Very unnerving.
- The Callers • (2012) : Another reason to avoid Bingo with Grandma. Fine portrayal of young and old.
- The Page • (2012) : Campbell's homage to Bradbury also homages Philip K. Dick's conspiracies.
- Her Face • (2018) : Solid vignette about a child's fear of a corner-shop owner, a fear that only increases after her death. Another broken family.
- The Fun of the Fair (2018): A dive into his notes for the classic 1970's story "The Companion" yields a new story with few shared traits with the old story. Well, other than a fearful, lost fairground/carnival and a fearsome meditation on aging.
Overall: My favourite Campbell non-reprint collection of stories since Dark Companions in the mid-1980's. And Dark Companions was one of the ten greatest original horror stories ever. The stories are especially good in their characterization characters young and old, and in striking sparks both dark and light from these interactions.
One of the important lessons one can learn from Campbell is that horror is at its most effective when it's not portrayed as some sort of supernatural revenge. One can find thematic reasons for the types of horror the characters face stemming from their personal histories, but there's no justice in real horror. It's an existential plague.
That doesn't mean there can't be humour, lightness, or word play in a horror story. Or to riff on Campbell's love of word play, I'd say that his 50+ year career spent terrifying us makes him... an eminence grisly... !!! Highly recommended.
Predators (2010): written by Alex Litvak and Michael Finch; directed by Nimrod Antal; produced by Robert Rodriguez; starring Adrien Brody (Royce), Topher Grace (Edwin), Alice Braga (Isabelle), Walton Goggins (Stans), Oleg Taktarov (Nikolai), Laurence Fishburne (Noland), Danny Trejo (Cuchillo), Louis Ozawa Changchien (Hanzo), and Mahershala Ali (Mombasa): Overcrowded with characters and gifted with a hilariously miscast Adrien Brody, Predators is nonetheless mostly entertaining. Producer Robert Rodriguez's fingerprints are all over it, though Nimrod Antal is a slicker director than he. Lightly recommended.
The Thin Blue Line (1988): written and directed by Errol Morris; score by Philip Glass: Errol Morris' riveting documentary, backed by a hypnotic Philip Glass score, got an apparently innocent man out of jail. Randall Adams spent about ten years in a Texas jail for a murder that the film overwhelmingly suggests was committed by another man. The film shows how the justice system can go horribly awry, even after Adams finally goes free -- Texas releases him in such a way that he can't receive any wrongful imprisonment funds from the State. Thanks, assholes! One of the essential documentaries (and films) of all time. Highly recommended.
Cam (2018): written by Isa Mazzel, Daniel Goldhaber, and Isabelle Link-Levy; directed by Daniel Goldhaber; starring Madeline Brewer (Alice/ Lola), Patch Darragh (Tinker), Melora Walters (Lynne), Devin Druid (Jordan), Imani Hakim (Baby), and Michael Dempsey (Barney): Former cam-girl Isa Mazzel co-wrote this horror movie of stolen identities and mysterious online presences (she also cameos as a check-out clerk).
Protagonist Alice, screen-name 'Lola,' finds her attempts to climb the ladder of popularity for cam-girls complicated by the appearance of another cam-girl who looks and sounds exactly like her -- and is willing to do stuff that Lola is not.
Cam takes us into cam-girl culture, an online niche I'm not that familiar with. Alice seems to make a good living from her feed, supplementing it with gifts from some of her more ardent admirers. The ardent admirers are... pretty creepy. Is one of them the source of doppel-Lola? Or is something even weirder going on?
Madeline Brewer makes for an engaging protagonist. The film doesn't condescend to her cam-girl shenanigans -- it's a job, even if it involves nudity and feigned sex acts. And as things escalate both online and in the 'real' world, Alice has to find reserves of character she may not be aware of possessing. All this without a Very Special Ending in which cam-culture is revealed to be The End of the World As We Know It.
Cam is visually interesting, moving between the mundane colours of the day-to-day world and the vibrant f*ck-me colours of Lola's cam-room, other cam-rooms, and the online presences on the cam-girl site. Directot Goldhaber handles both the gradually building weirdness and a couple of explosions of violence with care. There's even a stunner of an 'embarrassment' scene that doesn't pay off later in quite the way the viewer expects it will.
In all, this Netflix film is a solid piece of horror, its characterization of Alice sensitive, its willingness to avoid pat answers a godsend. It even plays fair within the rules of the cam-girl site when it comes to facing the mysterious entity. Highly recommended.
The Masque of the Red Death (1964): adapted by Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell from stories by Edgar Allan Poe, including "Hop Frog" and "The Masque of the Red Death"; directed by Roger Corman; starring Vincent Price (Prince Prospero), Hazel Court (Juliana), Jane Asher (Francesca), and Skip Martin (Hop Toad):
"And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." - Poe, "The Masque of the Red Death."
Low-budget horror impresario Roger Corman got more money than he ever had before for this loose adaptation of a couple of Edgar Allan Poe stories. Further aided by British film credits and leftover sets from Becket, Corman made his horror masterpiece. It certainly didn't hurt that the great cameraman and later director Nicholas Roeg was cameraman for the movie.
Above all, the movie looks great. The set design and costumes are impressively bright, fanciful, and intermittently bleak when we visit the blasted heaths of the medieval Spanish countryside.
Set some time during the Middle Ages in Catalan, The Masque of the Red Death focuses on the sinister, Satan-worshiping local lord of the manor, Prince Prospero. The plague of the Red Death has fallen upon the countryside. So Prospero retreats to his castle with his favoured nobles and entertainers. And with a pure and virtuous peasant girl he has kidnapped, along with her lover and her father.
Prospero derives entertainment from the debasement and murder of those around him. The virtuous peasant girl (played solidly by Hazel Court) is someone to 'break.' But her faith in God impresses him, in part because of how seemingly misplaced that faith is in the plague and poverty and violence ravaged country side.
And so begins the Masque of the Red Death, the worst costume ball ever, at least from a survival standpoint. The Red Death isn't simply a disease -- it's a being. And it has promised deliverance to the peasant girl and doom for Prince Prospero and his guests. Prospero has faith that Satan will protect him. We'll see how that goes.
The Masque of the Red Death is a great and poignant spectacle, capped with a couple of show-stopping scenes. Back to back. I guess the second scene would have to be a show-stop-maintaining scene, as the show is already stopped. Vincent Price is magnificent as Prospero, a truly awful being with a certain bleak and oily charm. Skip Martin is also good as Poe's vengeful jester-dwarf Hop Toad. Highly recommended.
Red State (2011): written and directed by Kevin Smith; starring Michael Angarano (Travis), Nicholas Braun (Billy-Ray), Ronnie Connell (Randy), Stephen Root (Sheriff Wynan), Melissa Leo (Sara), Kerry Bishe (Cheyenne), Michael Parks (Abin Cooper), John Goodman (ATF Agent Keenan), and Kevin Pollak (ASAC Brooks):
Kevin Smith's bleak satire of sex, religion, and politics in America is one of his three or four best films. He's stripped the narrative of all sentimentality, which is simply my way of saying 'Don't get too attached to any of the characters!' This results in a lot of truly shocking moments, but one which does not celebrate or valorize violence or nihilism.
What you have are three randy teen-aged boys, bored with high school and life, and on the lookout for an easy hook-up via the Internet. You've got a virulently hateful local Christian church which spews hatred against pretty much everyone who isn't a member of the church. You've got the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms out for a big law-enforcement score. You've got corrupt, inept, and easily manipulated local law enforcement.
These ingredients make for a heady cocktail of horror and mayhem once they've been stirred.
Smith gets some fine performances out of his cast, especially John Goodman as an increasingly bewildered ATF agent, his good intentions destroyed at every turn by power-hungry superiors, inept local law enforcement, and junior agents following orders. Michael Parks of Twin Peaks plays the cult leader as a disarmingly charming, creepy monster of religious intolerance.
It's a funny movie at points, punctuated by sudden and awful violence. And even some of the violence becomes funny, at times because of its very suddenness and messiness. Hopefully Smith will make more movies like this -- it's a minor classic. Highly recommended.
Nightrunners (2016): written and directed by Rowan Nielsen; starring Grace Glowicki (Jessica), Mandi Nicholson (Isobel), Esther Asinga (Mama Achupa), Mary Etuku (Mama Esther), Christopher Oketch (Giggly), Sam Okudo (Chief), and Neville Misati (Michael):
This solid, low-budget film seems like it's going to be about some sort of monsters given the title and the first half-hour of set-up. But it goes off on an interesting tangent, without necessarily invalidating the idea that there are weird monsters out there, outside the camera's field of vision.
I will note that the film has nothing to do with Joe R. Lansdale's classic splatterpunk novel The Nightrunners.
Nightrunners follows two 20-something American women who've traveled to a remote Kenyan island to do charitable things and record them for a film project. The Kenyans are friendly. The women are accepted easily into the community. But they're told to never leave their compound at night. And at night, strange sounds and cries begin.
Then there's a mysterious death. And the woman who films everything starts to see things that don't show up on any camera. All this while her friend starts to forge close connections with the Kenyans, especially the affable Michael.
The film plays 'fair' throughout in straddling the line between 'real' and hallucinated events, between the supernatural and the delusional. It also offers a subtle critique of White People Bearing Gifts, culture shock, and the toll secrets can take on individuals, especially when they begin to surface without any conscious control.
And it manages some creepy moments in which the viewer (well, if the viewer is Caucasian) must question why one is creeped out in the first place. There's an interrogation of unconscious racism here, and quite an effective one. Recommended.
Veronica (2017): written by Fernando Navarro and Paco Plaza; directed by Paco Plaza; starring Sandra Escacena (Veronica), Bruna Gonzalez (Lucia), Claudia Placer (Irene), Ivan Chavero (Antonito), Ana Torrent (Ana), and Consuelo Trujillo (Hermana Muerte):
Set in 1991, Veronica is vaguely inspired by a 'true story.' It's about as truthful as The Exorcist -- the events of the film are entirely the invention of the Spanish director/co-writer best known for the found-footage horror film REC.
The real events involved the death of a young woman. So even with the names changed and the events leading up to that death entirely invented, there's more than a whiff of exploitation to the film. That's too bad. It's a solid supernatural thriller with a sympathetic teen-aged protagonist (Veronica, that is). Traumatized by the recent death of her father and overwhelmed by doing the majority of the care-giving for her three younger siblings, she's gradually going adrift.
And then she and two friends decide to consult a Ouija board.
During a solar eclipse.
Oops.
And there's also a somewhat sinister, elderly, blind nun at Veronica's school who warns her of tampering with the supernatural. Too late!
The result is a movie that conveys creeping, escalating dread quite nicely. Though it's no wonder there's a blind nun at the school -- the protocols the school follows for watching that eclipse would result in a whole lot of visually impaired school children. It's a pretty distracting sequence, really, because it's born of inadequate research and not intentional horror.
Boy, do those nuns not understand how the sun during an eclipse works! Maybe they should have consulted a Ouija board! Recommended.
Trench 11 (2017): written by Matt Booi and Leo Scherman; directed by Leo Scherman; starring Rossif Sutherland (Canadian Lieutenant Berton), Robert Stadlober (Reiner), Charlie Carrick (Doctor), Shaun Benson (German Kapitan Muller), Ted Atherton (British Major Jennings), and Luke Humphrey (U.S. Captain Cooper):
Enjoyable low-budget Canadian horror movie filmed in Manitoba and Ontario. Rossif Sutherland is an appealing Everyman as a Canadian 'tunneler' in WWI. He's supposed to be on leave as the war enters its last days. But British Military Intelligence needs him to help a small group investigate a mysterious underground German complex in the Ardennes.
Well, and we all know how respectful British intelligence officers are of human life, allied or otherwise. Because the Ardennes are under American control, the squad consists of four American infantry, two British officers, and our Canadian tunneler.
It's no surprise to discover that the Germans were developing a new weapon before something happened and they sealed the complex, badly. Once the squad enters the complex, things rapidly go sideways.
Trench 11 becomes something of a surprise at this point, focusing on humanity's capacity for monstrosity rather than on some pitched battle against super-zombies. The film-makers do a nice job of conveying the claustrophobia and confusion going on far below the surface of the Earth. It's a terse and effective film. Recommended.
The Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2006-2010); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger. Night Shade Press.
Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era.
Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace.
OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.
Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivaled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.
Note on bracketed categories:
- Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
- Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
- Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
- Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
- Malygris: Stories that involve the great Poseidonis mage Malygris.
- Mars: Science fiction story set on or around Smith's generally terrifying version of Mars.
- Maal Dweb: Alien though human-looking sorcerer who seems to rule over an entire alien solar system.
The End Of The Story: Volume One
In this first volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, we see Smith emerge almost fully formed as a writer of weird prose. He's definitely still finding his voice and his way (and a market), but his first published story ("The Abominations of Yondo" (1926)) and second story composed is a small masterpiece of weird horror and an unnervingly altered future.
Contains the following stories and essays. All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of composition:
- Introduction by Ramsey Campbell
- A Note on the Texts by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
- To the Daemon (1943): Slight but telling prose poem.
- The Abominations of Yondo (1926): In this memorable story influenced by Lord Dunsany, Smith crafts his first essential tale, a weird and unsettling story set in some strange distant future.
- Sadastor (1930) : Slight but telling prose poem.
- The Ninth Skeleton (1928): Slight meditation on time.
- The Last Incantation [Malygris] (1930): Short, pithy fantasy set in one of Smith's strange fictional realms not of our Earth (but certainly of his) introduces a mage who will return, Malygris. ESSENTIAL.
- The End of the Story [Averoigne] (1930): Bleak tale of vampirism and desire is the first set in Smith's medieval French province of Averoigne. ESSENTIAL.
- The Phantoms of the Fire (1930): Slight contemporary ghost story.
- A Night in Malnéant (1933): A tale of mourning seemingly set in a nightmare almost seems like a dry run for a lot of Thomas Ligotti's work half-a-century later.
- The Resurrection of the Rattlesnake (1931): Sight contemporary horror story.
- Thirteen Phantasms (1936): Slight meditation on time and identity.
- The Venus of Azombeii (1931) : Slight African adventure of a Lost City/Tribe with some unfortunate racial elements and little fantastic content (really, none).
- The Tale of Satampra Zeiros : [Satampra Zeiros/ Hyperborea] (1931): First tale of the prehistoric world of Hyperborea and the charming thief and raconteur Satampra Zeiros is also a sequel to a later Smith story, The Testament of Athammaus. ESSENTIAL.
- The Monster of the Prophecy (1932): Colourful, slyly satiric planetary romance, the latter almost literally by the end. ESSENTIAL.
- The Metamorphosis of the World (1951): One of Smith's satiric broadsides at his contemporary science-fiction writers also reads as a straightforward apocalyptic piece of science fiction anticipating some of our own fears of climate change.
- The Epiphany of Death (1934): Moody horror tale is also a nod to H.P. Lovecraft.
- A Murder in the Fourth Dimension (1930): Slight but fun bit of contemporary science fiction.
- The Devotee of Evil (1933): Contemporary horror plays with pseudoscience in its explanation for the existence of EVIL. ESSENTIAL.
- The Satyr [Averoigne] (1931): Disturbing dark fantasy from monster-haunted Averoigne. ESSENTIAL.
- The Planet of the Dead (1932): Melancholy science fantasy about a man who feels estranged from his own place and time, a recurring theme in Smith's stories.
- The Uncharted Isle (1930): Clever piece of dimension-hopping science fiction. ESSENTIAL.
- Marooned in Andromeda [Captain Volmar : 1] (1930): First of Smith's three complete stories and one fragment about his oddball crew of space-faring adventurers and mutineers. The satire of his contemporary space opera writers is subtle until it suddenly isn't. First Smith story to feature dangerous plants.
- The Root of Ampoi (1949): Slight contemporary Lost City/Tribe story.
- The Necromantic Tale (1931) : Slight dark fantasy tale of reincarnation and swapped minds.
- The Immeasurable Horror (1931): Disturbing, horrifying science-fiction adventure set on and above Smith's nightmarishly lush Venus. ESSENTIAL.
- A Voyage to Sfanomoë [Poseidonis] (1931): Science fantasy set as Atlantis falls takes us back to the nightmarishly lush Venus of "The Immeasurable Horror." Also, dangerous plants! ESSENTIAL.
- Story Notes by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
- "The Satyr": Alternate Conclusion [Averoigne] (1931): The alternate ending to "The Satyr" is even more disturbing than the chosen ending.
- From the Crypts of Memory (1917) : poem by Clark Ashton Smith
- Bibliography by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
The Door to Saturn: Volume Two
In this second volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, we see Smith pretty much at the zenith of his powers as a weird fantasist. The stories can be weird and occasionally horrifying, but also droll and comical in some cases. Smith moves among contemporary horror and distant realms of self-created fantasy with apparent ease. Even a story that waited 55 years to be published -- "A Good Embalmer" -- is an enjoyable bit of dark whimsy that reminds one of the stories of Ambrose Bierce.
There are more attempts at relatively straightforward horror-fantasy here than in any other volume, suggesting that Smith was working to place stories in markets by writing stories to fit the existing markets. This tendency would wane as his career progressed.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication):
- Introduction by Tim Powers
- A Note on the Texts by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
- The Door to Saturn [Hyperborea] (1932): Smith's novella about his legendary sorcerer Eibon becomes funnier the longer it goes, and ends with one of Smith's nods to interspecies sex, carefully phrased so as to avoid rejection from the magazines of the 1930's. ESSENTIAL.
- The Red World of Polaris [Captain Volmar 2] (2003) : Smith's second tale of Captain Volmar and his intrepid space-faring crew again walks the line between Space Opera and satire, but becomes awesomely apocalyptic over the final third.
- Told in the Desert (1964) : Minor bit of horror.
- The Willow Landscape (1931) : Lovely, melancholy Orientalist tale.
- A Rendezvous in Averoigne [Averoigne] (1931) : Another Averoigne story lays out some of the province's more dangerous locations. ESSENTIAL.
- The Gorgon (1932) : Minor horror story.
- An Offering to the Moon (1953) : Minor tale of a modern-day archaeological expedition gone nightmarishly wrong.
- The Kiss of Zoraida (1933) : Minor bit of Orientalist nastiness.
- The Face by the River (2004) : A fairly straightforward contemporary ghost story.
- The Ghoul (1934) : Weird Orientalist dark fantasy about ghouls.
- The Kingdom of the Worm (1933) : Smith pays homage to a little-known confabulist of the past with some pretty eerie and disturbing moments of travel through a disintegrating landscape infected by rot.
- An Adventure in Futurity (1931) : One of what is almost a Smith sub-genre -- a guy gets into a machine of either his or alien design (or a future human's, as here), and travels to another world or time. This one visits the future, and aims some pointed satire at conventional time-travelling narratives.
- The Justice of the Elephant (1931) : Minor 'revenge' horror story. With elephants!
- The Return of the Sorcerer [Cthulhu Mythos] (1931) : One of Smith's most anthologized stories is a sly, blackly humourous tale that intersects with H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. ESSENTIAL.
- The City of the Singing Flame [Singing Flame : 1] (1941) A work of visionary dark fantasy that focuses on the ecstasies of the Sublime. Followed by a sequel. ESSENTIAL.
- A Good Embalmer (1989) : Droll contemporary horror story.
- The Testament of Athammaus [Hyperborea] (1932) Great work of dark fantasy is a sort of prequel to Volume 1's "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros." ESSENTIAL.
- A Captivity in Serpens [Captain Volmar : 3] (1931) Smith's third tale (second published) of Captain Volmar and his intrepid space-faring crew again walks the line between Space Opera and satire yet again, and features a lengthy, dizzying chase scene through a cyclopean city.
- The Letter from Mohaun Los (1932) : One of what is almost a Smith sub-genre -- a guy gets into a machine of either his or alien design, and travels to another world or time. This one visits other planets while attempting to travel in time, discovering that gravity doesn't apply to objects in transit through the time-stream.
- The Hunters from Beyond (1932) : Solid, visceral yet cosmic horror story nods in a way to H.P. Lovecraft's great "Pickman's Model." ESSENTIAL.
- Story Notes by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
- Alternate Ending to "The Return of the Sorcerer"
- Bibliography by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger
A Vintage From Atlantis: Volume Three
In this third volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith has reached the peak of his considerable powers as a prose writer, giving birth to all-time classics that include the horrifying "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" and "The Seed from the Sepulchre" and the brilliant, droll Averoigne novella "The Colossus of Ylourgne." "The Colossus of Ylourgne" and "The Empire of the Necromancers" are two prime examples of Smith's ability to combine horror, irony, humour, and melancholy into one short package.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Michael Dirda
- A Note on the Texts
- The Holiness of Azedarac [Averoigne] (1933): Ironic, erotic. ESSENTIAL.
- The Maker of Gargoyles [Averoigne] (1932): Creepy gargoyles do terrible things. ESSENTIAL.
- Beyond the Singing Flame (1931) Smith returns to the world of the Singing Flame (See Volume 2) in a work of cosmic ecstasy and mystery. ESSENTIAL.
- Seedling of Mars [Mars] (1931) (with E. M. Johnston): Another of Smith's subtle parodies of planetary romances and science fiction of his time, leading to a strange and apocalyptic climax. is this catastrophe or eucatastrophe?
- The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis [Mars] (1932) Absolutely first-rate science-fiction horror set on Smith's dying, dusty, ancient Mars. It's like the prototype for every Alien-style movie and written horror to come. ESSENTIAL.
- The Eternal World (1932) : Odd, engaging bit of cosmic speculation and Sublime play with time and space.
- The Demon of the Flower (1933) : Disturbing tale of metamorphosis and evil plants.
- The Nameless Offspring (1932) : Disturbing contemporary tale of ghouls and implied, quasi-necrophiliac rape.
- A Vintage from Atlantis [Poseidonis] (1933) : Moody prose poem.
- The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan [Hyperborea] (1932) : Strangely hilarious (in almost a Bugs Bunny sort of way) of how a greedy loan shark gets his just desserts.
- The Invisible City (1932) : Fun, odd, contemporary 'Hidden City' adventure.
- The Immortals of Mercury (1932) : Another of Smith's subtle digs at his contemporary science-fiction writers.
- The Empire of the Necromancers [Zothique] (1932) : Brilliant, affecting, funny tale of a couple of malign necromancers on the world's last continent. ESSENTIAL.
- The Seed from the Sepulcher (1933) Horrifying, creepy tale of an evil plant. An orchid, in this case. ESSENTIAL.
- The Second Interment (1933) : Minor horror in the vein of Poe.
- Ubbo-Sathla [Hyperborea/ Cthulhu Mythos] (1933): Time-bending tale of metamorphosis and fate. ESSENTIAL.
- The Double Shadow [Poseidonis] (1933) : Witty tale of magics gone wrong. ESSENTIAL.
- The Plutonian Drug (1934) : Minor time-travel piece.
- The Supernumerary Corpse (1932) : Very minor scifi murder.
- The Colossus of Ylourgne (1934) A brilliant novella involving necromancy in medieval French Averoigne. Stands among other things as the lurking precedent for Clive Barker's much-praised "In the Hills, the Cities." ESSENTIAL.
- The God of the Asteroid (1932): Minor, bleak science fiction story.
- Story Notes
- The Flower-Devil (1922) : poem by Clark Ashton Smith
- Bibliography
The Maze of the Enchanter: Volume Four
In this fourth volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith continues in peak form. Excellent tales of his horrifying Mars of the future ("The Dweller in the Gulf," "Vulthoom") rub shoulders with fine stories of the Earth's last continent ("The Isle of the Torturers"), prehistoric Hyperborea ("The Ice Demon"), and visionary contemporary horror (the terrific "Genius Loci"). We also meet Smith's prototype of Rick from Rick and Morty, the amoral science-magician Maal Dweb.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Gahan Wilson
- A Note on the Texts
- The Mandrakes [Averoigne] (1933) : Minor tale of posthumous revenge.
- The Beast of Averoigne [Averoigne] (1933) Restored three-part version of one of the two or three best stories of that demon-haunted medieval French province of Averoigne -- this time threatened from without by a thing from a comet. ESSENTIAL
- A Star-Change (1933) : Minor but fascinating tale that focuses on the potentially mind-altering effects of alien landscapes and dimensions.
- The Disinterment of Venus [Averoigne] (1934) Droll, erotic humour involving a pagan statue that really gets a lot of monks... excited. Statuesque, indeed! ESSENTIAL.
- The White Sybil [Hyperborea] (1934) : Moody, near-prose poem.
- The Ice-Demon [Hyperborea] (1933) ESSENTIAL. Terrific horror story of the coming of the Ice Age that would end Smith's Hyperborea.
- The Isle of the Torturers [Zothique] (1933) ESSENTIAL. A perverse, satisfying tale of almost accidental revenge on the titular island by one of its victims.
- The Dimension of Chance (1932) : Almost parodic with its jet-plane chase at the beginning before diving into another of Smith's unearthly dimensions where our rules do not apply.
- The Dweller in the Gulf [Mars] (1933) ESSENTIAL. Human adventurers on Mars meet with one of the Red Planet's most horrible subterranean denizens. The story does a masterful job of conjuring up claustrophobia and body horror.
- The Maze of the Enchanter [Maal Dweb] (1933) ESSENTIAL. Droll story of Smith's bored magician.
- The Third Episode of Vathek: The Story of the Princess Zulkaïs and the Prince Kalilah (1937) : novelette by William Beckford and Clark Ashton Smith: Heavy sledding if you're not a William Beckford fan. Smith writes about 4000 words to complete Beckford's incomplete 11,000 words of a tale of Vathek from the 18th century.
- Genius Loci (1933) ESSENTIAL. Smith codifies a new type of supernatural horror in the contemporary world.
- The Secret of the Cairn (aka The Light from Beyond) (1933) : Trippy science-fiction story about yet another voyage to another dimension.
- The Charnel God [Zothique] (1934) ESSENTIAL. A sword-and-sorcery tale that was one of Conan creator Robert E. Howard's favourite Smith stories.
- The Dark Eidolon [Zothique] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Small epic of Earth's last continent, an evil city, and the evil sorcerer who seeks vengeance against it.
- The Voyage of King Euvoran [Zothique] (1933) : Comic tale (albeit with a high death toll) of a quest for a lost crown.
- Vulthoom [Mars] (1935) : Smith's malign Mars has another monstrous being. And it's an evil plant.
- The Weaver in the Vault [Zothique] (1934) : Moody tale of creeping horror.
- The Flower-Women [Maal Dweb] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Black comedy and magical battles as a bored Maal Dweb becomes the unlikely saviour of a species of carnivorous plant women. Yes, semi-evil plants.
- Story Notes
- Alternate Ending to "The White Sybil"
- The Muse of Hyperborea (1934) poem
- The Dweller in the Gulf: Added Material
- Bibliography
The Last Hieroglyph: Volume Five
In this fifth volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith's creative juices continue to flow before rapidly going dry due to increased family responsibilities and a cessation of the creative forces that made for his incredible five-year burst of greatness. Nonetheless, many fine stories come from his pen, especially before 1939. Almost all the stories, regardless of date of composition or publication, began as entries in Smith's Commonplace Book of the early 1930's.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Richard A. Lupoff
- A Note on the Texts
- The Dark Age (1938) : Mournful science-fiction story about the descent of (a) Dark Age.
- The Death of Malygris [Malygris] (1934) ESSENTIAL. Posthumous revenge for one of Smith's mighty, malign sorcerers.
- The Tomb-Spawn [Zothique] (1934) : Bleak horror tale of the last continent.
- The Witchcraft of Ulua [Zothique] (1934) ESSENTIAL. Erotic, ironic tale of an innocent young man, a malign queen, and the thankful intercession of the man's magical uncle.
- The Coming of the White Worm (Chapter IX of the Book of Eibon) [Hyperborea] (1941) ESSENTIAL. Brilliant tale of the descending Ice Age at the end of the Age of Hyperborea.
- The Seven Geases [Hyperborea] (1934) ESSENTIAL. A droll, horrifying tale of malign justice directed at a very annoying nobleman.
- The Chain of Aforgomon (1935) : Contemporary horror in the vein of the Cthulhu Mythos.
- The Primal City (1934) : Weird, minor lost city tale.
- Xeethra [Zothique] (1934) : Almost a prose poem of Zothique, very atmospheric and melancholy.
- The Last Hieroglyph [Zothique] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Brilliant, almost post-modern tale of gods, destiny, and... writing?
- Necromancy in Naat [Zothique] (1936) ESSENTIAL. Moody and melancholy, but also a satisfying tale of revenge and love beyond the grave.
- The Treader of the Dust (1935) ESSENTIAL. Another white guy reads the wrong spells from the wrong book. Horrifying decay and disintegration are marvelously expressed in Smith's prose.
- The Black Abbot of Puthuum [Zothique] (1936) ESSENTIAL. The closest Smith ever came to writing a Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sword-and-sorcery tale. A lot of funny, and surprisingly ribald.
- The Death of Ilalotha [Zothique] (1937) : Minor horror tale with a memorable final few paragraphs.
- Mother of Toads [Averoigne] (1938) ESSENTIAL. Erotic horror story. Genuinely creepy and disturbing, especially if you don't like toads.
- The Garden of Adompha [Zothique] (1938) ESSENTIAL. This time the plants are the good guys! Some very curious erotica here at times.
- The Great God Awto (1940) : Mild parody of Smith's hated automobile culture.
- Strange Shadows (1984) : Attempt at a more contemporary (for 1941), flippant 'Unknown Magazine' style doesn't work, which may explain why it was not published for more than 40 years after composition.
- The Enchantress of Sylaire [Averoigne] (1941) : Funny, erotic tale of Averoigne, witches, werewolves, and love rejected and found.
- Double Cosmos (1983) : Minor alternate dimension story.
- Nemesis of the Unfinished (1984) : Very minor bit of 'horror' about writer's block.
- The Master of the Crabs [Zothique] (1948) : Funny, grotesque tale of crabs and treasure and magic.
- Morthylla [Zothique] (1953) : Minor, mournful tale of the last continent.
- Schizoid Creator (1953) : Another stab at Unknown Magazine dark fantasy.
- Monsters in the Night (1954) ESSENTIAL. Much-anthologized piece uncharacteristic of Smith's prose style.
- Phoenix (1954) : Bradburyesque science-fiction story anticipates Danny Boyle's Sunshine, among other things.
- The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles [Satampra Zeiros/ Hyperborea] (1958) ESSENTIAL. Smith's lovable thief from his early story "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" returns for a curtain call.
- Symposium of the Gorgon (1958) : Minor drollery.
- The Dart of Rasasfa (1984) : Very slight parody of Gernsbackian scifi of the 1920's.
- Story Notes
- Variant Temptation Scenes from "The Witchcraft of Ulua"
- "The Traveler" (1922) : poem
- Material Removed from "The Black Abbot of Puthuum"
- Alternate Ending to "I Am Your Shadow"
- Alternate Ending to "Nemesis of the Unfinished"
- Bibliography
Note: If you've read this far in the Supercut, note that the illustrations for the covers of collected editions always have Clark Ashton Smith's face on one of the characters. The More You Know!
The Last Hieroglyph: Volume Five of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2010); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger.
One
Two
Three
Four...
Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era.
Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace.
OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.
Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivaled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.
In this fifth volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith's creative juices continue to flow before rapidly going dry due to increased family responsibilities and a cessation of the creative forces that made for his incredible five-year burst of greatness. Nonetheless, many fine stories come from his pen, especially before 1939. Almost all the stories, regardless of date of composition or publication, began as entries in Smith's Commonplace Book of the early 1930's.
Note on bracketed categories:
- Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
- Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
- Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
- Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
- Malygris: Stories that involve the great Poseidonis mage Malygris (See also The Last Incantation, Vol. 1)
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Richard A. Lupoff
- A Note on the Texts
- The Dark Age (1938) : Mournful science-fiction story about the descent of (a) Dark Age.
- The Death of Malygris [Malygris] (1934) ESSENTIAL. Posthumous revenge for one of Smith's mighty, malign sorcerers.
- The Tomb-Spawn [Zothique] (1934) : Bleak horror tale of the last continent.
- The Witchcraft of Ulua [Zothique] (1934) ESSENTIAL. Erotic, ironic tale of an innocent young man, a malign queen, and the thankful intercession of the man's magical uncle.
- The Coming of the White Worm (Chapter IX of the Book of Eibon) [Hyperborea] (1941) ESSENTIAL. Brilliant tale of the descending Ice Age at the end of the Age of Hyperborea.
- The Seven Geases [Hyperborea] (1934) ESSENTIAL. A droll, horrifying tale of malign justice directed at a very annoying nobleman.
- The Chain of Aforgomon (1935) : Contemporary horror in the vein of the Cthulhu Mythos.
- The Primal City (1934) : Weird, minor lost city tale.
- Xeethra [Zothique] (1934) : Almost a prose poem of Zothique, very atmospheric and melancholy.
- The Last Hieroglyph [Zothique] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Brilliant, almost post-modern tale of gods, destiny, and... writing?
- Necromancy in Naat [Zothique] (1936) ESSENTIAL. Moody and melancholy, but also a satisfying tale of revenge and love beyond the grave.
- The Treader of the Dust (1935) ESSENTIAL. Another white guy reads the wrong spells from the wrong book. Horrifying decay and disintegration are marvelously expressed in Smith's prose. In the vein of the Cthulhu Mythos.
- The Black Abbot of Puthuum [Zothique] (1936) ESSENTIAL. The closest Smith ever came to writing a Conan or Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser sword-and-sorcery tale. A lot of funny, and surprisingly ribald.
- The Death of Ilalotha [Zothique] (1937) : Minor horror tale with a memorable final few paragraphs.
- Mother of Toads [Averoigne] (1938) ESSENTIAL. Erotic horror story. Genuinely creepy and disturbing, especially if you don't like toads.
- The Garden of Adompha [Zothique] (1938) ESSENTIAL. This time the plants are the good guys! Some very curious erotica here at times.
- The Great God Awto (1940) : Mild parody of Smith' hated automobile culture.
- Strange Shadows (1984) : Attempt at a more contemporary (for 1941), flippant 'Unknown Magazine' style doesn't work, which may explain why it was not published for more than 40 years after composition.
- The Enchantress of Sylaire [Averoigne] (1941) : Funny, erotic tale of Averoigne, witches, werewolves, and love rejected and found.
- Double Cosmos (1983) : Minor alternate dimension story.
- Nemesis of the Unfinished (1984) : Very minor bit of 'horror' about writer's block.
- The Master of the Crabs [Zothique] (1948) : Funny, grotesque tale of crabs and treasure and magic.
- Morthylla [Zothique] (1953) : Minor, mournful tale of the last continent.
- Schizoid Creator (1953) : Another stab at Unknown Magazine dark fantasy.
- Monsters in the Night (1954) ESSENTIAL. Much-anthologized piece uncharacteristic of Smith's prose style.
- Phoenix (1954) : Bradburyesque science-fiction story anticipates Danny Boyle's Sunshine, among other things.
- The Theft of the Thirty-Nine Girdles [Satampra Zeiros/ Hyperborea] (1958) ESSENTIAL. Smith's lovable thief from his early story "The Tale of Satampra Zeiros" returns for a curtain call.
- Symposium of the Gorgon (1958) : Minor drollery.
- The Dart of Rasasfa (1984) : Very slight parody of Gernsbackian scifi of the 1920's.
- Story Notes
- Variant Temptation Scenes from "The Witchcraft of Ulua"
- "The Traveler" (1922) : poem
- Material Removed from "The Black Abbot of Puthuum"
- Alternate Ending to "I Am Your Shadow"
- Alternate Ending to "Nemesis of the Unfinished"
- Bibliography
The Maze of the Enchanter: Volume Four of the Collected Fantasies Of Clark Ashton Smith (2009); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger.
Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era.
Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace.
OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.
Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivaled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.
In this fourth volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith continues in peak form. Excellent tales of his horrifying Mars of the future ("The Dweller in the Gulf," "Vulthoom") rub shoulders with fine stories of the Earth's last continent ("The Isle of the Torturers"), prehistoric Hyperborea ("The Ice Demon"), and visionary contemporary horror (the terrific "Genius Loci"). We also meet Smith's prototype of Rick from Rick and Morty, the amoral science-magician Maal Dweb.
Note on bracketed categories:
- Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
- Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
- Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
- Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
- Maal Dweb: Alien though human-looking sorcerer who seems to rule over an entire alien solar system.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Gahan Wilson
- A Note on the Texts
- The Mandrakes [Averoigne] (1933) : Minor tale of posthumous revenge.
- The Beast of Averoigne [Averoigne] (1933) Restored three-part version of one of the two or three best stories of that demon-haunted medieval French province of Averoigne -- this time threatened from without by a thing from a comet. ESSENTIAL
- A Star-Change (1933) : Minor but fascinating tale that focuses on the potentially mind-altering effects of alien landscapes and dimensions.
- The Disinterment of Venus [Averoigne] (1934) Droll, erotic humour involving a pagan statue that really gets a lot of monks... excited. Statuesque, indeed! ESSENTIAL.
- The White Sybil [Hyperborea] (1934) : Moody, near-prose poem.
- The Ice-Demon [Hyperborea] (1933) ESSENTIAL. Terrific horror story of the coming of the Ice Age that would end Smith's Hyperborea.
- The Isle of the Torturers [Zothique] (1933) ESSENTIAL. A perverse, satisfying tale of almost accidental revenge on the titular island by one of its victims.
- The Dimension of Chance (1932) : Almost parodic with its jet-plane chase at the beginning before diving into another of Smith's unearthly dimensions where our rules do not apply.
- The Dweller in the Gulf (1933) ESSENTIAL. Human adventurers on Mars meet with one of the Red Planet's most horrible subterranean denizens. The story does a masterful job of conjuring up claustrophobia and body horror.
- The Maze of the Enchanter [Maal Dweb] (1933) ESSENTIAL. Droll story of Smith's bored magician.
- The Third Episode of Vathek: The Story of the Princess Zulkaïs and the Prince Kalilah [Vathek] (1937) : novelette by William Beckford and Clark Ashton Smith: Heavy sledding if you're not a William Beckford fan. Smith writes about 4000 words to complete Beckford's incomplete 11,000 words of a tale of Vathek from the 18th century.
- Genius Loci (1933) ESSENTIAL. Smith codifies a new type of supernatural horror in the contemporary world.
- The Secret of the Cairn (aka The Light from Beyond) (1933) : Trippy science-fiction story about yet another voyage to another dimension.
- The Charnel God [Zothique] (1934) ESSENTIAL. A sword-and-sorcery tale that was one of Conan creator Robert E. Howard's favourite Smith stories.
- The Dark Eidolon [Zothique] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Small epic of Earth's last continent, an evil city, and the evil sorcerer who seeks vengeance against it.
- The Voyage of King Euvoran [Zothique] (1933) : Comic tale (albeit with a high death toll) of a quest for a lost crown.
- Vulthoom (1935) : Smith's malign Mars has another monstrous being. And it's an evil plant.
- The Weaver in the Vault [Zothique] (1934) : Moody tale of creeping horror.
- The Flower-Women [Maal Dweb] (1935) ESSENTIAL. Black comedy and magical battles as a bored Maal Dweb becomes the unlikely saviour of a species of carnivorous plant women. Yes, semi-evil plants.
- Story Notes
- Alternate Ending to "The White Sybil"
- The Muse of Hyperborea (1934) poem
- The Dweller in the Gulf: Added Material
- Bibliography
A Vintage From Atlantis: Volume Three of the Collected Fantasies of Clark Ashton Smith (2007); edited by Scott Connors and Ron Hilger.
Clark Ashton Smith was a contemporary of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard. With those two, he formed what became known as "The Three Musketeers of Weird Tales" in the late 1920's and 1930's. None of them was the most popular writer for Weird Tales -- that was Seabury Quinn. But in time they would become known as the three finest and most influential American fantasists of their era.
Smith is the least well-known because he didn't create a fictional universe that others would adopt after him, as Lovecraft did with the Cthulhu Mythos and as Howard did with the world of Conan the Barbarian. His style and subject matter, however, have an incalculable influence and worth. His poetic prose (and Smith was a very good, published poet long before his short story years) testifies to horror, lushness, irony, and moments of grace.
OK, sometimes it seems like he ate a thesaurus. Maybe three of them. But that's a part of the charm, especially as even Smith's diction can be ironic or satiric, especially when he's just making up words.
Truly remarkable too is that the bulk of Smith's stories were written in a five-year period. It's a burst of creativity almost unrivalled in fantasy literature. Most of the stories he wrote after that burst were based on story ideas he recorded at the time in his Commonplace Book.
In this third volume of The Collected Fantasies from Night Shade Press, Smith has reached the peak of his considerable powers as a prose writer, giving birth to all-time classics that include the horrifying "The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis" and "The Seed from the Sepulchre" and the brilliant, droll Averoigne novella "The Colossus of Ylourgne." "The Colossus of Ylourgne" and "The Empire of the Necromancers" are two prime examples of Smith's ability to combine horror, irony, humour, and melancholy into one short package.
- Note on bracketed categories:
- Averoigne: Fictional, demon-haunted French province during the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
- Zothique: The "last continent" of Earth, uncounted millions or billions of years in the future.
- Hyperborea: The ancient civilized kingdoms of humanity prior to the last Ice Age.
- Poseidonis: Last city of sinking Atlantis.
- Cthulhu Mythos: A number of Smith's stories could be set within H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, especially those set during the time of Hyperborea and those featuring the dark god Tsathoggua. Well, and those mentioning Eibon or The Book of Eibon. Or Ubbo-Sathla. However, only those stories that are definitely Cthulhu Mythos stories are indicated.
- Mars: Science fiction story set on or around Smith's generally terrifying version of Mars.
Contains the following stories and essays (All dates are publication, not composition -- the five volumes are arranged in order of publication)
- Introduction by Michael Dirda
- A Note on the Texts
- The Holiness of Azedarac [Averoigne] (1933): Ironic, erotic. ESSENTIAL.
- The Maker of Gargoyles [Averoigne] (1932): Creepy gargoyles do terrible things. ESSENTIAL.
- Beyond the Singing Flame (1931) Smith returns to the world of the Singing Flame (See Volume 2) in a work of cosmic ecstasy and mystery. ESSENTIAL.
- Seedling of Mars [Mars] (1931) (with E. M. Johnston): Another of Smith's subtle parodies of planetary romances and science fiction of his time, leading to a strange and apocalyptic climax. is this catastrophe or eucatastrophe?
- The Vaults of Yoh-Vombis [Mars] (1932) Absolutely first-rate science-fiction horror set on Smith's dying, dusty, ancient Mars. It's like the prototype for every Alien-style movie and written horror to come. ESSENTIAL.
- The Eternal World (1932) : Odd, engaging bit of cosmic speculation and Sublime play with time and space.
- The Demon of the Flower (1933) : Disturbing tale of metamorphosis and evil plants.
- The Nameless Offspring (1932) : Disturbing contemporary tale of ghouls and implied, quasi-necrophiliac rape.
- A Vintage from Atlantis [Poseidonis] (1933) : Moody prose poem.
- The Weird of Avoosl Wuthoqquan [Hyperborea] (1932) : Strangely hilarious (in almost a Bugs Bunny sort of way) of how a greedy loan shark gets his just desserts.
- The Invisible City (1932) : Fun, odd, contemporary 'Hidden City' adventure.
- The Immortals of Mercury (1932) : Another of Smith's subtle digs at his contemporary science-fiction writers and their planetary romances.
- The Empire of the Necromancers [Zothique] (1932) : Brilliant, affecting, funny tale of a couple of malign necromancers on the world's last continent. ESSENTIAL.
- The Seed from the Sepulcher (1933) Horrifying, creepy tale of an evil plant. An orchid, in this case. ESSENTIAL.
- The Second Interment (1933) : Minor horror.
- Ubbo-Sathla [Hyperborea/ Cthulhu Mythos] (1933): Time-bending tale of metamorphosis and fate. ESSENTIAL.
- The Double Shadow [Poseidonis] (1933) : Witty tale of magics gone wrong. ESSENTIAL.
- The Plutonian Drug (1934) : Minor time-travel piece.
- The Supernumerary Corpse (1932) : Very minor scifi murder.
- The Colossus of Ylourgne (1934) A brilliant novella involving necromancy in medieval French Averoigne. Stands among other things as the lurking precedent for Clive Barker's much-praised "In the Hills, the Cities." ESSENTIAL.
- The God of the Asteroid (1932): Minor, bleak science fiction story.
- Story Notes
- The Flower-Devil (1922) : poem by Clark Ashton Smith
- Bibliography
